A dialogue, recently, between a politician and group of sex-workers boiled down at one point to something akin (and very common in 21st century belief) of “to men, it’s just sex” and “to women, it is far more emotional”. Much of the interview was interesting; but I was so turned off by this statement that here I am, per usual, with a writing I knew had been brewing in anticipation for well over a year. And while I do not pretend to be a psychologist or expert on sexuality, I have done extensive research on the matter for nearly two decades and preached/taught on the subject many times—primarily to young adults and adolescence. Below is a message on the subject matter; and for the sake of seeing a perspective I will never have, nor fully understand, my wife wrote this with me.
Most young men in today’s culture, when thinking of sex in a married sense, usually have a fantasy in mind which proclaims: “I can’t wait for marriage; to be committed to someone fully, so we can have sex all the time, any time, every morning and every night. I don’t care what others have said about not having sex after you’re married—they don’t know the depths of how amazing I am, and I will marry an incredible woman who loves sex as much as I do.”
Meanwhile, most young women are thinking: “I can’t wait to get married so I don’t have to worry about this sex thing anymore. Of course, we will have the honeymoon, and that will be fun. And I know they say men only care about one thing, but God is going to bring me (or I am going to find by happenstance because I don’t believe in God) an incredible man who understands those carnal things are not as important as our relationship with each other.”
And truthfully, both are very wrong. One thing is certain, that most every man and woman in this age thinks, “I know everything”. And what I have discovered is that some may know more than others, and others may know less, but one thing is absolute: we do not know a fraction of the power and effect of Sex. It is not just sex.
The first laughable lie that most media informs us of is that it is merely a physical act that brings incredible pleasure. The second is attached to it, that says, “unless of course it is with someone you love; then it becomes something much more fulfilling as it represents the completion of two who are in love.” And the third is that “you need experience before marriage or you will disappoint your spouse.”
This is the betrayal that common media finds itself in constantly; on one hand pushing an idea that it is meaningless. And with another that it is powerful and lovely between two whom love one another and should be intimate; or contrarily expressed and shown artistically. Back and forth. One movie that portrays sex as rudimentary; another that shows a teenage girl fulfilling her purpose by giving herself to a young man who loves her at the end of the movie.
The first notion is wrong; Sex is not merely physical. Yet the second is still short-sighted, because it is far more than emotional. In fact, it is one of those few, powerful things in nature that demonstrates the three-fold being—even the Trinity of our Godhead—spirit, soul, and body. This, aside from prayer, makes Sex the most powerful physical force on the planet. And its proof is riddled through the gained understanding of why Satan would be so apt to get ourselves to lower its meaning and effect with counterfeit copies, fornication and blasé idealism. While you may not believe in Satan, I can at least point out that humanity is so broken in all areas that touch, or are touched, by any form of sexuality, and why the further we break from a consensual, covenant sexual act, the more heaping piles of heartache, death, and destruction we bring upon ourselves.
And finally, the notion that one needs experience before marriage is completely false. God designed you to breathe, blink, eat, sleep, defecate, and many other things naturally. You needed practice in order to ride a bike; but you never needed to learn how to eat or sleep. The same is true for sex. Now, when you first ate food, it got all over your face and you defecated in your pants a lot. But do not be dismayed, you got better, (hopefully). The notion that you need experience in order to please your spouse or yourself is a lie from the pit of hell. When in fact, it is much more detrimental to your marriage. It has the adverse effect. The more you perform sex before marriage, even with the same person you will one day marry, the less pleasure you’ll experience after marriage; as sex has lost its luster, power, reverence and worship in your eyes.
If guns were a more powerful physical force than sex, we would use guns to make someone buy smoothies. Or shower gel. Or toothpaste. Or body spray. But instead, we use sex. And while those things have nothing to do with sex—a young man’s body odor, for instance—someone was smart enough to market our world into smelling better by using sex to allure young men into hygiene.
Sex is powerful and thus demands our respect. Many see it as powerful, but fail to respect it with the awe and reverence it deserves. Sex is foremost about honesty, vulnerability, joy, hilarity, and commitment.Pleasure is a mere byproduct of sex—the simple stuff. The good stuff, yes,but simply the fleeting pleasure; not the long lasting. And the effects of sex will either strengthen you and make you more powerful, or weaker and ashamed. Sex is far grander than just physical pleasure or animalistic behavior. It can conquer and eradicate; build up mountains and tear down strongholds. By God it was designed, and in no way did He make Man and Woman and think: “Oh my Me, why are they doing that to one another?”
Remarkably, Men and Women receive from it in very differing ways. It’s incredible how psychologically, physiologically and supernaturally men and women are extremely different. And none is more apparent of this than sex. (Again, isn’t it amazing that in sex is the thing the Enemy would want us to believe we are the same?)
For men, Marital Sex is a necessity. It has the power to encourage, empower, sustain, and awaken them to be great, powerful, noble, and heroic. From his wife, it is near-always the thing which activates tenderness, purpose, courage and passion. Psychologists tell us that when a man sees a woman in provocative clothing, his brain activates the same neural activity as when he is looking at a hammer or saw. This is not because men see woman as objects or tools; rather, they have the same impulse activated in them to build and conquer. Coincidentally, because Marital Sex imbues such powerful characteristics into husbands, when out of the confines of marriage—or even in some lackluster or misaligned marriages—sex weakens, disillusions, discourages and makes men afraid.
Men can take years or decades to come to terms with this, because most of the time, their introduction to sex is led by the fleeting pleasure, rather than the adverse effects; It is muddled up further when their favorite superhero is having unbridled sex all the time and is supposed to be the archetype of manliness. It’s fake; thus, the man is trying to live a fake life in a real world, and it doesn’t fit together. Ladies are often misled in this understanding—please, do not be disillusioned by the appearance of men or how they are portrayed in media and culture—they are absolutely capable of being, and often are, crippled by SEX.
For a woman, sex is a response to a necessity being met.Many women have been quoted as having zero affinity or desire to have sex. Beyond puberty, some women would be fine not performing it. (In fact, most young women lose their virginity out of mere curiosity instead of desire, thus, studies show that, commonly, women lose their virginity sooner than men.) Women regard sex as a response to intimacy. It is activated by tenderness, courage, respect, safety, security, and love. Those things it puts into man. It is a response of absolute vulnerability and trust; the last great possession that all women have and hold. And because sex is an intimate response for women, when outside of marriage—outside of the confines of security, commitment, and faithfulness—it leaves the woman feeling dirty, worthless, alone and scared.
For woman, the allure of sex is often not physical at all, but driven by a need to be desired and the impulse to hold power over a man. And it is power over a man—the very curse that God put on Eve. But once that power is delivered in sex, as it was designed to be, the woman feels trapped (when outside the confines of Marital Sex). And because of this, she must give it again and again to retain whatever false sense of power and worth she may have; until the man leaves, leaving her with no power and the feeling of utter shame and discard at her core.
Consensual or not, Sex has the power to destroy a person. Again, it is akin to a gun, or even money. It is not fundamentally good or evil. It is simply powerful. How it is used determines everything.
In men, Sex is about the desire to achieve victory and become vulnerable. Again, the opposite of women; that a woman feels victorious until sex is performed. She is vulnerable to relinquish it. A man achieves victory afterward and becomes vulnerable to receive it.
The word Naked has been misconstrued over the years. It initially was defined as the past participle of “naking”—to remove, as a shell on a nut or skin on a fruit. Naked is not an adjective, but a past verb. The removal of the outer shell. Man is not in his natural state unclothed, but fully clothed. And when he removes the clothing, he is making himself vulnerable and at the will of all who see him. He was naked—unshelled—before God in the garden. He becomes naked before his wife. When men suffer this outside of marriage, they feel a surge of Victory and Vulnerability, only for it to be replaced by utter Shame. Because Victory brought on by fake vulnerability is itself an imitation. Shame covers the man, and he flees.
And this happens to all men. Don’t think the greatest, manliest, James Bond of all men doesn’t suffer this. Every man on the face of the planet, when having sex outside of marriage, feels this overwhelming onslaught of Shame afterward. A man might cover up his shame and distort it into afalse sense of Pride to wear as a badge around others, but do not be deceived, he feels weak and pitiful. Usually resulting in him fleeing. Which immediately drives the woman into shame. And the cycle spirals into oblivion. The woman ends up trying to give more of herself to feel worth. The man searches for more ways to feel a sense of victory, either more women or pornography. All the while, both of them feeling more and more ashamed afterward.
And this Shame is what leads to separation from God.
Genesis 3:8-10 When the cool evening breezes were blowing, the man and his wife heard the Lord God walking about in the garden. So they hid from the Lord God among the trees. Then the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?” He replied, “I heard you walking in the garden, so I hid. I was afraid because I was naked.”
But inside of marriage—because God hath created this powerful thing to be there—it works so effectively. The woman is able to hold the power of desire and give it to her husband. The man feels victorious yet vulnerable and understood, able to take on the world. And because this is established in the safe, faithful confines of marriage, they are able to walk with their heads held up; the woman feeling powerful and desired; the man feeling victorious and understood.
Sadly, most Christians have this idea in their head that God made sex for us to procreate, and then was surprised by how much we enjoyed it! But He designed you to enjoy having sex and for it to be an absolute blast. The physical attributes are the joy, hilarity and pleasure. The emotional ones are more powerful, and even greater still are those spiritual repercussions. For Sex in Marriage is worship. A husband and wife wage war against the Enemy every moment they have sex, and they worship God at the same time.
Oh, how beautiful you are!
How pleasing, my love, how full of delights!
You are slender like a palm tree,
and your breasts are like its clusters of fruit.
I said, “I will climb the palm tree
and take hold of its fruit.”
May your breasts be like grape clusters,
and the fragrance of your breath like apples.
May your kisses be as exciting as the best wine—
Yes, wine that goes down smoothly for my lover,
flowing gently over lips and teeth.
I am my lover’s,
and he claims me as his own.
Come, my love, let us go out to the fields
and spend the night among the wildflowers.
Let us get up early and go to the vineyards
to see if the grapevines have budded,
if the blossoms have opened,
and if the pomegranates have bloomed.
There I will give you my love.
Song of Solomon 7:6-12
Be happy, yes, rejoice in the wife of your youth. Let her breasts and tender embrace satisfy you. Let her love alone fill you with delight.
Provers 5:18-19
and the two are united into one.’ Since they are no longer two but one, let no one split apart what God has joined together.”
Mark 10:8-9
This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one. Now the man and his wife were both naked, but they felt no shame.
Genesis 2:24-25
Do not deprive each other of sexual relations, unless you both agree to refrain from sexual intimacy for a limited time so you can give yourselves more completely to prayer. Afterward, you should come together again so that Satan won’t be able to tempt you because of your lack of self-control.
1 Corinthians 7:5
God loves righteous Sex. Because Sex is powerful. It isn’t just Sex…
It unites, empowers, delivers, strengthens, restores, and thrills.
People love to celebrate the thrill of an adventure. But there’s an expansive difference between jumping out of an airplane, and jumping out of an airplane without a parachute. Sex in your marriage is far better than the thrill of jumping out of an airplane. Likewise, sexual sin outside of marriage is far worse than hitting the ground without a parachute.
So be careful how you live. Don’t live like fools, but like those who are wise. Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days. Don’t act thoughtlessly, but understand what the Lord wants you to do.
Ephesians 5:15 NLT
Unfortunately, purity is a word that has become laughable in the 21st Century. Even among Christians, it is mocked with a slight derision. In schools, people make fun of students who wear virginity rings, “true love waits”, and are virgins. Even in the adult world, we have reached a point in the “Progressive” Christian church where purity is seen as a sort of joke. Labeled as innocence and childishness.
However, Purity is not Innocence. Just as weakness is not nobility. A weak man is not a good man; but a powerful man that chooses righteousness is a good man. And so, the soul who knows the allure and temptation of sex, yet chooses wisely, is pure; the innocent who know nothing are merely ignorant.
God blesses those whose hearts are pure, for they will see God.
Matthew 5:8
I desire to dive much deeper into this word “See” and “Vision” in the coming weeks, because it is one word that I’ve researched extensively this year. But for now, let me brush over what Jesus said. The Greek word for “See” is optanomai, which means to see and be seen.
And so Christ says that those who are pure will see and be seen by God. Those in shame shall hide, afraid of being naked (unshelled).
The last thought I would give on this matter is that to some, Sex is a disgusting and frightening act. And to others, it conjures up years of heartache and shame. As I’ve explained to many young people over the years, it is akin to placing your hand on a hot stove. I, as a parent, would tell my children not to touch the stove; because I know it will burn them, scar them, possibly disfigure, and hurt a lot. They may do it anyway. And when they do, it will bring nights of screaming yourself to sleep, days of not knowing how to live, and a long healing process. But God will heal them. And the stove can create wonderful, delicious delights when used properly. It is not evil or disgusting. It is holy, powerful, and able to change your entire world.
If one hasn’t touched the oven yet, don’t do it until marriage. If you have, then talk to a spiritual leader and find out how to defeat these demons, release those soul-ties, and heal again. Because grace is sufficient. And until you confess those sins to another, you will not be healed. But once doing, you can be set free forever. And I promise you will heal.
For referential data:
Sheet Music – Dr. Kevin Leman
Wild at Heart – John Eldredge
Becoming a King – Morgan Snyder
The Four Loves – C.S. Lewis
Generation Z Unfiltered – Tim Elmore
The Barna Group
The Word of God
Keith G. Alderman 